Sunday, August 25, 2013

There is a place,
Where I can go,
When I feel low,
When I feel blue.
And it's my mind,
And there's no time when I'm alone.

– The Beatles,
‘There’s a Place’

Jean Paul Sartre begins the essay ‘Being
and Nothingness’ writing that philosophy has discarded many of the dualisms
that inhibited its progress in past eras. Among these outmoded dualisms, is the
belief that every human existent consists of both an interior and exterior which
sit in opposition to each other. The interior is typically understood to be a
privileged space, the realm of essential identity, substance and being. By
contrast, the exterior is nothing but appearance and delusion; it is the realm
of the senses, a world of dazzling colors and phantasmal shapes which taunt the
viewer, underscoring the frailty of human perception. But as Sartre explains,
“The appearances which manifest the existent are neither interior nor exterior;
they are all equal, they all refer to other appearances, and none of them is
privileged” (p. 3). Thus he goes on to conclude that “The obvious conclusion is
that the dualism of being and appearance is no longer entitled to any legal
status within philosophy” (p. 4).

While it is probably safe to say that
few people today would dispute the soundness of Sartre’s conclusion, the full
implications of this simple observation – namely, the unity of the existent or,
more broadly, phenomena – have yet to be assimilated. This is only to be
expected. After all, one of the basic tenets of existentialist thought is the
idea that the introduction of every human to earth is, in its own small way, a
revolution. For every new person – for that is what they are, a new person – is suddenly tasked with (re)inventing
humanity. Every generation must start from scratch, learning, inventing or
perverting humanity all over again.

Thus, for every person the heliocentric
revolution might just as well have occurred during freshman science class, and the
polemics of Socrates first argued in the middle of sophomore literature. In short, if
there are still many people who still believe their “true” self to be
unknowable to all but themselves, residing in some nebulous interior space,
this should not be all that surprising. Again, the merits of this Cartesian
dualism, the opposition of the interior to the exterior, are likely to be
debated as long as there are humans plodding the earth. At the very least,
learning about this dualism will always be a small revolution for each new
person, the introduction of – for them – a new problem, footnote or solution.

________

Yet there are more persistent causes that
compel people to organize their worldview spatially into interior and exterior
realms than simple intellectual confusion. By severing one’s world into two
realms – one public and partial, the other private and complete – the human
existent erects a defensive mental terrain that protects them from the
pressures of reality. It is a self-defense measure, though perhaps not in the
traditional sense of the phrase. Within the familiar redoubt of one’s interior
space, the pressures and criticisms of the exterior world are easily repulsed.
The towers of the interior are impenetrable, its walls made of a material too
foreign to grasp, its heights too lofty to scale. Carving out an interior space
accords its occupant a position of power and privilege, for only they get to
occupy it; indeed, only they are capable of occupying it.

In contrast, the exterior is like some
strange frontier, foreign and dangerous. The interior realm can hover over the
exterior’s lonely plains or cast its gaze upon its sun-baked hills, but their
borders are never wholly transgressed; they are like oil and water. Indeed, the
fact that the human existent can occupy both the interior world and the
exterior at the same time illustrates their enduring polarity. The existence of
one is confirmed by the other, just as a great hero demands a nemesis, the
depths of whose perversity mirrors the great magnitude of their righteousness.
Considerable psychic tension is generated when the two confront one another, confirming
the existence of both and compelling the existent to withdraw to the interior. An
awareness of their mastery of the interior helps dull a sense of helplessness
that is now and then piqued by the knowledge of their impotence out in the
dangerous exterior. But this inability to master the exterior does not phase
the existent – at least, that is what they tell themselves – since all that is
true and worth knowing ultimately lies within the interior, their interior. What good, after all, is
it to entertain falsehood, to be courted by lies?

The
interior-exterior dualism consequently embodies as much of a human propensity for
self-understanding as it does a purely intellectual theorem. Cast into the
world, naked and bloody, the human existent is confronted by the startling fact
of their existence. What makes their existence alarming is not the fact of life
itself, but the peculiar relation of the individual to the imposing world in
which they find themselves thrown. It is a world of marvelous complexity and
beauty, as well as tragedy and conflict. But in all its contours and
cataclysms, this world is frustrating for the human existent, for even its
grandeur seems to remind the existent of their unfolding mortality, impotence
and general inability to master this ever-expanding world.

By carving out an interior space,
however, they score a subtle but important victory. First, by establishing the
fiction of an interior space they create a realm that is inaccessible to others
but one in which they know everything. It is outside the control and knowledge of
the threatening exterior, yet completely within their mastery and realm of comprehension.
And by investing their own personhood and identity within this cloistered world
they implicitly take themselves out of the exterior one. In doing so, they gain
control of their lives – or, at least, the feeling of control.

The idea of an interior world is
perhaps most used when people are experiencing relational problems. How often
have we heard the phrases “he/she does not understand me,” or “they just don’t
get me.” If asked what is wrong, these sorry sops may even snap back that “you wouldn’t
understand.” Read through the teeth, the insinuation is not so much that we
would not understand their problems if told, as it is the assertion that we cannot understand their position; this
is supposedly a psychic impossibility since the rest of us are not privy to their inaccessible interior. This worldview is, however, deeply
problematic: it does not so much help the individual understand the world, as
give them an excuse to give up trying to do so; and it does not empower the
individual to confront their problems in the real world, but rather, provides them
a fictive refuge to escape from this world, even as this interior world is inescapably a part of the real one. And
lastly, it shifts the blame for their problems upon others, and this by
default. There would not be a problem, we are told, if they understood. But they cannot, so there is no point in trying to
reach a solution. Just as the interior never resolves itself to the existence
of the exterior, the individual never resolves themselves to the existence of
their fellow humanity. For it is just in these people, these others, that the
enduring legacy of the exterior finds its most permanent expression.

________

Upon reflection, however, one realizes
that there is a great deal about humans that are best appreciated by others.
One’s mannerisms, temperament and silly passions are most keenly felt by those
who supposedly regard only the exterior. A great friend, for instance, may be
able to put into words the pain that their friend is experiencing even before
this friend is able to articulate this suffering in their own words. What’s
more, a parent will likely comprehend the trials and significance of school
life better than their struggling student. “You don’t know what it’s like to be
a high-schooler!” rebuts the teenage daughter, in all her alienated ardor. Struggling
to hide a smile, the parent will know precisely what it is like to be a
teenager attempting to negotiate peer groups, brave tests and overcome growing
pains. At one time, they were the teenager. Even the endeavor of creating an
interior identity and the motives that underlie it are shared experiences. It
is highly unlikely that this dualism would be a general philosophical problem if
others did not indulge in its creation and for similar reasons.

What ultimately makes the experience of
others accessible is the fact that we are all human, and secondly, the
fact that being human means being cast into a shared world – the same
problem-riddled turf occupied by the rest of humanity. Each social experience is a shared experience. To entertain the pretense that others cannot understand it is ridiculous; by its very terms a social experience requires that others partake in it as well. But why then do people
retreat to a fictive interior, especially when confronted by, to the contrary,
a knowing other? To be known is to be vulnerable, to transcend the narrow bounds
of one’s self, and acknowledge our interdependence as human existents. Yet it
is only by committing this act of surrender, the dissolution of the interior, that
one is fully enlivened. In other words, to be alive one must not
only know but be known, that is, understood and accepted by the other. What
good is an identity if there is no one to identify with?

In Christian philosophy, for example, this entails
the admission of one’s sin and dependence on God; it is to reciprocate God’s
love for the world back to God. A Christian’s identity then, comes not from attempts
to garner respect, the pursuit of great deeds, or the accumulation of
knowledge, but rather, from being known and loved by God. So Paul writes in 1
Corinthians 8:2-3 that “The man who thinks he knows something does not yet know
as he ought to know. But the man who loves God is known by God.” Put another
way, the quest for intellectual mastery is an admission
of insecurity. It is a frenzied attempt to create a new identity for one’s self
rather than accept the identity that God already has for them – an identity
that is based upon being known and loved by God, not temporal endeavors.

To follow God consequently means that one
must admit their essential weakness, something that is very upsetting to those
who have spent their lives attempting to find transcendence by means of their
own devices, within their own interior space. Yet, within Christian philosophy,
to be known by God is profoundly empowering: freed from ill-fated attempts to
immortalize themselves – that is, to transcend their immanence by means of
their own power – the disciple is empowered to look outwards and engage the “exterior,”
the real world in which they reside. Or in the words of C.S. Lewis, their lives
are buoyed with the knowledge that “eternity is now,” freed to live within the
present rather than be enslaved to the demons of the past or fears of the future.

________

What does this all mean? The
distinction between the interior and exterior betrays something deeper about
humanity’s existential condition than mere intellectual confusion. Broadly
interpreted, it signals an attempt to escape from the disorder and tension of
every day, to make sense of the world by rearranging it spatially into realms
which can be more easily controlled – or, more accurately, ones that we can
more easily convince ourselves we control. Yet walls keep out just as much as
they keep in. Friends are shirked, loved ones are rejected and knowledge is ignored through use of these manmade barriers. In this quest to know and be known we are
then left with several uncomfortable questions. What are we trying to keep out? What are we trying to hide?

We must learn that “there is a place,” as
John and Paul sing, where we can go when we feel “low” or “blue.” Yet it is not
a place apart from the world of our problems but one planted firmly in it. It
is the present, a place book-ended by the pillars of past and present, and grounded
in the revelation that indeed eternity is now.

Thursday, August 15, 2013

“‘Tis the star-spangled banner! Oh long
may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!”

– Francis Scott Key, “The Star
Spangled Banner”

This June I completed my undergraduate studies in political science at the University of Oregon. After some contemplation, I realized that not once during my entire time at the university did a teacher address the subject of freedom, a subject which one might consider axiomatic for a student of political science. Perhaps in a post-modern world this is to be expected. All words seem to have shed their original meaning; indeed, the very idea that a word can have a clear, discernible meaning has itself been debated. Yet as a student of Hannah Arendt or Timothy Mitchell knows, this is not the case for all languages and it certainly was not always, if ever, the case for our own. Yes, language is always changing. But the world of language is far less inchoate, impenetrable and fluid than one might imagine. It is much easier to visualize change than to imagine constancy. Motion, change and progress are concepts far more accessible to the human imagination than the abstraction of stasis over any extended period of time.

Whatever the case, it seems silly to dive into the minutiae to politics without ever asking what they are meant to achieve, that is, their purpose. And if freedom is the highest goal, as everyone seems to believe, then this seems as good a place as any to begin our inquiry. Let us begin our search for freedom with the conviction that in order to be free one must be willing to ask questions, one must be willing to see things as they are...

________

For the ancient
Greeks, freedom was believed to exist within the polis, the realm of political action, between equals in wealth and
stature. Instead of denoting an individual right, freedom comprised group
action, that is, the ability of peers to work together for a common purpose.
The current notion that people from all classes, both the rich and poor, can be
free would have struck the ancient Greeks as absurd. For it was only by forcing
others, in other words slaves, to pursue life’s essential activities that the
elite secured for themselves the time and means to partake in the exercise of
freedom.

Besides being
qualified by class, freedom was understood to be a political in nature. To the
modern reader, this may sound odd. The Republican Party, for instance – an
organization which self-consciously identifies itself with the values of
Greco-Roman antiquity – has often suggested that politics are actually
antagonistic to freedom. After all Ronald Reagan, the icon of American
conservatism, said in his inaugural address that, “government is not a solution
to our problem; government is the problem.” For the ancient Greeks, however,
freedom was an expressly political phenomenon. The ability to speak freely or
pursue individual enjoyments were not “freedoms” that existed outside of the
political sphere. Rather, they were indicators of one’s privileged political
status, and in fact the preconditions, as opposed to the substance, of freedom.
In short, the Greek conception of freedom finds itself at odds with our own
modern notion of freedom, one which focuses on the individual as opposed to the
collective, and generally regards politics with a wary eye.

This clash of terms
merits the question, why the discrepancy? For today, instead of recognizing the
distinctly political character of freedom, freedom is believed to only exist
outside of the political sphere, even existing in opposition to it. And the
notion that both the poor and rich can honestly regard each other as their
political peers has also become a fixture of political thought. The figment of
the benign capitalist, or benevolent hierarchy, now sits in perpetual though unstated
tension with the ideal of equality between peers.

It is, perhaps,
first worth examining precisely why the notions of freedom that are now in
vogue are, in practice, little more than notional. The political process in
America is a profoundly disillusioning one. Every several years, a list of
candidates is made without input from the greater public. This is followed by a
wave of campaign advertisements which seem to arise out of the blue, most of
which are paid for by shady slush funds whose ponderous names seem to meld into
one another. Next is the most involved step of the process for the average
citizen: they check off a box on a piece of paper and drop it into a container.

True, a string of
speeches, campaign antics and patriotic themes saturate the airwaves. But in
all of this the citizen remains not so much a participant in the political
process as an observer. Their involvement is ordered by patterns of mediation: the
screen of the television, antenna of the radio or veil of the ballot box. It is
hard to imagine that anything could be further from the ideal of direct
democracy; for in this case, participation is vicarious. A citizen watching the
Democratic National Convention, for example, can imagine that they are sitting in
the stands and the candidate addressing them personally. The soaring rhetoric and
airbrushed imagery is not a marketing gimmick, they are told, but rather, a
“fireside chat.” The entire experience is received rather than taken, given
rather than created. It is mediated through the priestly intercessor of the media;
the role of the citizen is fundamentally that of observer; and the process
entails no collective action, no communal solidarity except for that which
exists for and in relation to a distant symbol – the candidate or party. And
this symbol is like a lightning rod. All hopes, fears and desires can be
projected upon it, allotting the observer an opportunity for cathartic release.
Yet its emotional power and mass appeal is largely a product of its ambiguity;
as a symbol it stands for everything and nothing at the same time.

________

Unfortunately, what
has the potential to be the most involved, impactful and community-oriented
mode of human intercourse has become the most inert, unsatisfying and atomized
of activities – if, indeed, can even be said to be an activity. It is,
consequently, no wonder that most Americans view politics with skepticism;
politics is most often felt in its absence, in its insufficiency. The hope that
flickers in the citizen’s heart may draw them toward the polls, but the
campaign’s mesmeric effect rarely outlasts itself. Having been alienated from
the political process, the citizen may begin to feel that freedom from politics
is the solution to their ills, rather than the freedom that exists within the
realm of political action. Naturally, this is a freedom that they are oblivious
to, one obscured by broken promises.

Members of the
political class are just as likely to believe that freedom exists outside of
the political sphere, yet for altogether different reasons. Living within a
bubble of political power, it becomes easy to forget that the freedom they
enjoy is actually political in nature. The freedom that the citizen rejects out
of ignorance is the freedom that the politician overlooks out of familiarity. Just
as a child, oblivious to his parents’ sacrifices, may believe that life would be
better off without them, the politician can rave about the evils of big
government while ironically holding elected office.

And having imbibed
the heady fumes of power and privilege, the politician can also pursue the myth
of American prosperity, indeed, the gilded promise of the American Dream. This is
a much more delicate matter – though, given the blinding nature of privilege, it
is generally handled with all the tact of a hog wrestler. Equality between the
classes is assumed even as certain classes are savaged, leading to amusing
contradictions. Thus, Mitt Romney can praise the essential dignity of the American
people while claiming that 47% of Americans are leeches sapping the nation of
its fiscal vitality. During campaign season, one will find that politicians
inevitably pay homage to the “middle class,” before denying that the phenomenon
of class exists in America altogether. And while odes are sung to the middle
class, nobody will ever mention the existence of a lower or working-class. All
people in America are members of the middle-class, we are assured. Either the
politicians who wax about the middle-class really do not believe that poverty
exists, or their failure to even mention the America’s poor suggest that the
poor just do not matter. They are expendable.

The discomfiting reality is that the poor,
for the most part, really do not matter to the average politician. They are far
less likely to vote or engage in political activism that effectively challenges
the litigious obstacles of the status quo. Just as importantly, they do not
have the money that decides elections. After all, their exploited labor power
is what makes the lavish lifestyles of the corporate elite possible, and
through this, the existence of monetized politics. But the politician’s
ambivalent if contradictory approach to the existence of the American poor goes
beyond pure political calculation. More concretely, the imprecise rhetoric of
the politician – which both recognizes and denies the existence of class within
the same sentence – reflects an imprecise understanding of freedom. The Greek
upper-crust knew that their freedom was made possible through the enslavement
of other people who were tasked with the banalities of life (productive labor).
Today, however, the political class is generally in denial with the fact that
their freedom is made possible by the exploitation, indeed the enslavement, of
America’s poor.

________

So what is freedom?
Or, more appropriately, what was
freedom? Freedom is nothing more and nothing less than the ability of people to
act in concert towards meaningful political change. At present, the type of
freedom enjoyed by the political class is, like the Greeks’, exclusive and
partial. The designated forum for political action is self-selective, dependent
upon money and hostile to those who are not of the same pedigree. Since it is by
nature exclusive it sacrifices the potential for the full realization of
freedom. The political class can act together towards a desired objective, but
their power potential is limited because it exists only at the exclusion of the
average citizen. Their partial form of privilege and power exists in opposition
to the majority of the citizenry; its existence and structural weakness
existing in spite of and because of the untapped potential of the greater
public.

A government’s use
of violence is a good indicator of the type of freedom exercised by the
political class. When a state does not attract the support or power – that is,
solidarity – of its citizens, it relies on violence to crush dissent. This
violence masks the impotence of the ruling clique, even as it admits their own powerlessness.
Governments whose people are free will not need to use violence because the
people are the government, their solidary (power) being the power of the government.
Consequently, a society in which all the people are encouraged to pursue their
potential to the fullest will be the freest of societies. The potential for
collective action and self-realization will be tapped to the fullest extent,
uplifting society as a whole and expanding the feasibility of political action –
freedom.

________

Yet the potential
realm of collective action, and thus, political freedom, is fragmented today. “Individual
liberties” are touted as freedom itself, rather than being the prerequisites of
freedom. Members of the political class suggest that politics is simply a means
for securing these “individual liberties,” negating the role of mass
participation within the political process. This is eminently dangerous. If the
individual is reliant on a distant government to act as intercessor between
them and their “individual liberties” then they are, paradoxically, put into a
very vulnerable position as an individual citizen.

Firstly, their
freedom becomes synonymous with the brute conditions for existence, instead of being
something that ennobles these conditions and is produced from them. To be
deprived of “freedom of speech” is to become a slave, indeed; but what good is
this “freedom” if it cannot be used to reify some higher purpose? What good is
the ability to speak if one lives in a society in which freedom only amounts to
talk, and in fact, this society has become so divided that there is no one to
talk to? Secondly, if a distant government takes on the role of the intermediary
between the citizen and their freedoms, then the citizen is subjected to the
whims of those at its helm. Their freedom becomes subjective – that is, subject
to the caprices of whoever is in office. Freedom becomes malleable and
inconstant; a slave to the commands of someone else. It is no longer a verb which
entails participation but takes on the appearance a noun, something to be given
or traded. The citizen becomes an observer or recipient of freedom. And because
it is something that is given, the citizen has little to no role in its formation,
no input regarding its provisions. It is the freedom of the dependent, the
vulnerable – the slave.

The present
obsession with individual will and liberty is as curious as it is dangerous. Hannah
Arendt explains that the “will” first appeared as a distinct faculty in
Christian thought. Yet the individual “will,” in this context, is never truly
free. Or as the apostle Paul writes, the will of the spirit to do what is right finds
itself in perpetual conflict with the will of the flesh to sin. So while a “will”
may exist, it is itself weak and capricious, unable to transcend the conflict
of competing wills which confuse it at every turn. Arendt writes that “if man
has a will at all, it must always appear as though there were two wills present
in the same man, fighting each other for power over his mind. Hence, the will
is both powerful and impotent, free and unfree” (Arendt, Between Past and Future, p. 161).

In Christian philosophy, God’s intervention
allows humanity to transcend this clash of wills. But this resolution is only
sustained through collective action and empowerment made possible through
solidarity with other Christians. The tension between wills persists but is
transcended through collective action rooted in faith. Today’s focus on the
individual’s liberties, however, curiously denies the importance of collective
identity and participation within the decision-making process. This leaves the
citizen vulnerable, unable to transcend their immanence, the confines of their
prejudices, weakness and finitude. Disempowered and dissatisfied, they project
their angst and deferred hopes on a distant symbol, in this case the
preexisting power structure: the sovereign. Yet this valorization of the
unreachable, distant and uncertain creates problems of its own.

Hannah Arendt notes
this when she writes that, “Politically, this identification of freedom with
sovereignty is perhaps the most pernicious and dangerous consequence of the
philosophical equation of freedom and free will. For it leads either to a
denial of human freedom – namely, if it is realized that whatever man may be,
they are never sovereign – or to the insight that the freedom of one man, or a
group, or a body politic can be purchased only at the price, i.e., the sovereignty,
of all others” (ibid., p. 164). In refusing to live interdependently with their
peers, the citizen chooses to become dependent on elite power.

________

The effects of the
corrupted understanding of freedom can be seen everywhere, as indeed it has
seeped into the very fabric of political life. Freedom, for the most part, has
become synonymous with alienation; in other words, slavery. Citizens are
encouraged to take out huge college loans – with interest rates above the
market rates – and this is regarded as a shining example of America’s
enterprising character. The college student, we are told, must shoulder their
entire education on their own back, even as it drives them deeper and deeper
into debt-bondage. In a world of NSA-style surveillance, austerity packages and
corporate propaganda, the debtor prison has become unnecessary, even redundant.
The entire civilized world is has become a prison and the atomized individual
their own cell, complete with a (prison) social security number.

And again, the
freedom of the citizen is essentially the freedom to choose their punishment.
Malcolm X once quipped that, “‘Conservatism’ in America’s politics means ‘Let’s
keep the niggers in their place.’ And ‘liberalism’ means ‘Let’s keep the
knee-grows in their place – but tell them we’ll treat them a little better; let’s
fool them more, with more promises’” (Malcolm X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, p. 380). Unfortunately, Malcolm X’s
observation remains just as relevant today. One party, we are told, stands on
the left and the other on the right. Yet one’s spatial position is always
relative, implying a certain reference point. In politics, this remains true
for one’s ideological position. One must then ask, to whom does this party
stand to the left, and next to whom does this other party stand to the right? In
practice, both parties have drifted so far to the right that their only
ideological differences are cosmetic. The Democrats may say that they stand up
for the average citizen but it was Clinton who gutted “welfare as we know it”
with the punitive Personal Responsibility Act, a law which literally renounced
the very principle of welfare. And the Republicans can rave about the evils of
big government, but it is they who have racked up the most debt in proportion to GDP while in office.
To borrow from Malcolm X again, the difference between the two parties is that
between the wolf and the fox. Both will try to eat you; one is just smarter
in going about it.

The brand of freedom
marketed by the political class is always one of negation, self-renouncement
and division. This is what is ultimately meant by the supposed virtue of small
government: cut the food stamps, starve schools of funding, kill Medicaid, cut
taxes for the rich and make the rest bear the brunt. What is most telling,
though, are the origins of the pro-states’ rights and small government philosophy.
The most outspoken proponent of states’ rights in the 20th century was
Governor George Wallace of Alabama, who famously said “segregation now,
segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.” This is no coincidence. Ever since abolitionists
lobbied the government to end slavery, the mantra of states’ rights has most loudly
been invoked to justify slavery, and later, the persistence of Jim Crow laws on
a local basis. The logic of states’ rights has time and time again been used to
suppress “civil rights,” or the ability of people to meaningfully participate
in the political system collectively. This suppression of civil rights is interchangeable with the suppression of political
rights – in other words, freedom.

Today the logic of
states’ rights is also being used to erode the ability of labor to bargain with
management. So-called “right to work” initiatives are being launched on a
state-to-state basis in order to scare people from participating in union
activity, and get them to believe that unions are their enemy. Workers do not
need to act collectively to voice their concerns, “right to work” advocates
claim. They just need to be able to talk to management on a one-on-one basis,
the so-called “open door policy.” Just as the political elite are the
intercessor between the isolated citizen and their freedom, so management is to
be the intercessor between the worker and their work – their means of
existence. Labor is divided while management is united: “As capitalism creates
a society in which no one is presumed to consult anything but self-interest,
and as the employment contract between parties sharing nothing but the inability
to avoid each other becomes prevalent, management becomes a more perfected and
subtle instrument” (Harry Braverman, Labor
and Monopoly Capital, p. 67).

The idea that strength
does not exist in numbers or that people with the same interests should not be
able to collectively express their concerns is ridiculous, of course. After
all, that is exactly what management is doing! Just as revealing is the fact
that the advocates of “right to work” measures universally frame the problem as
one of freedom and rights, but never express support for the “right to a living
wage” or anything else that would actually help workers. Rights are always
understood in terms of being free from
something: free from freedom.

And this
propaganda of disempowerment can be witnessed everywhere. During the women’s
suffrage movement of the early 20th century, for instance, women
were encouraged to smoke as a sign of their new liberty. Edward Bernays, the
mastermind behind this marketing campaign, came to be known as one of the
founders of human relations, contributing a seminal work to the field which he
entitled Propaganda. Today people
attempt to free themselves from the alienation and despair sensed so acutely in
American society through the use of addictive drugs like cigarettes and
alcohol. In doing so, they become slaves to a destructive habit, one which
threatens their very lives, and makes them peons of a soulless corporate machine
which makes money by slowly killing their bodies.

And within
Guantanamo Bay, the paragon of American freedom, a mass hunger strike is underway.
Over one-hundred prisoners have chosen to collectively strike in protest to
their continued imprisonment without charges, a policy which stands in stunning
violation of international law. This display of collective power is a poignant act
of freedom, a revelation of humanity’s capacity to work in solidarity even in
the most violent and hopeless of situations. The brilliance of their freedom,
their humanity, has managed to reach the outside world, even if only through the
bars of the cages that attempt to confine, separate and degrade their freedom.
Yet the prisoners have refused to surrender their freedom, instead choosing to
fight for it at all costs – even death.

But the government has been quick to explain that the prisoners have no cause for
complaint. After all, those who are force-fed have the freedom to choose the flavor
of protein shake that goes down their neck each day.

________

When I write that
Guantanamo Bay is the “paragon of American freedom,” I mean it – though this
requires an explanation. American freedom is understood in terms of freedom from, never as the freedom to. It is never productive but reactive;
never satisfied but always seeking. During the Cold War, freedom meant freedom
from an attack from the Soviets or freedom from a nuclear holocaust. Today the
definition has been transposed to fit the latest paper enemy, terrorism. It then follows that Guantanamo Bay is paradoxically America’s bastion of freedom, that is, freedom
from the terrorism that it supposedly locks inside, as if it were Pandora’s Box.
Within the American mindset one can never be free unless there is a threat to
confirm one’s freedom, something to be free from.

Yet what the
prisoners in Guantanamo are practicing is, paradoxically, freedom. For, make no
mistake, they are asserting their freedom – the ability to collectively inscribe
their existence on the world, and, in doing so, transcend it. Yes, the U.S. may
have control over their bodies but it can never penetrate their souls, that
deep, primordial drive to live unshackled by the manacles of hate, oppression and
ignorance. Together they are forging a small space in which freedom is not inert and
passive, but vital and active, even painfully so. It is time for Americans,
like the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, to learn that there are worse things than
pain, fear and death.

Wednesday, August 7, 2013

Last week
the widely read columnist, Rich Lowry, published an article which critiques the
work of historian Howard Zinn. Recently, he explains, the president of Purdue
attempted to ban Zinn’s book A People’s
History of the United States from the classroom, characterizing it as “a
truly execrable, anti-factual piece of disinformation that misstates American
history on every page.” When Purdue’s history department learned of the
president’s intentions, they responded by defending the book’s use, asserting
that to throw it out of the curriculum would be tantamount to an attack on
academic freedom. To Lowry, this is nonsense. He writes that, “You’d never
guess from the hysterics that the low estimation that Daniels has for Zinn’s
work is shared by a swath of distinguished historians. It’s not that they
disagree with Zinn or believe he’s too controversial. They think his work is,
to borrow the word Daniels used in another email, ‘crap.’” According to Lowry, “‘A
People’s History’ is a book for high-school students not yet through their
Holden Caulfield phase, for professors eager to subject their students to their
own ideological enthusiasms, and for celebrities like Matt Damon, who has done
so much to publicize it. If it is a revelation to you that we treated Native
Americans poorly, and if you believe the Founding Fathers were a bunch of
phonies, Zinn’s volume will strike you with the power of a thunderclap. And one
day, maybe, you will grow up.”

Lowry’s article is noteworthy because
it epitomizes several problems that have become commonplace amongst those who
produce “intelligent opinion” in America, especially those who are part of
the venerated establishment of the fourth estate. What follows is the first part of a new series
which critiques several assumptions that are held by a surprising number of
people who specialize in the manufacture of “intelligent opinion.” While
dissecting these assumptions it becomes apparent that what is at stake is more
than simple scholarship, but indeed, how we think and engage the world: whether we are to live with our feet planted on the ground, or live a life enveloped in convenient illusions -- albeit ones buoyed with pleasant prose.

________

The most plangent critique sounded
against Zinn in the article is the charge that his work is not “objective.” One
can tell that Lowry believes this to be the most damning charge that one can level
against an intellectual, Lowry sniffing that Zinn simply “had no use for
objectivity.” Lowry’s choice of the objectivity card – a favorite among
journalists – is interesting. It is reflective of many erroneous and, quite
frankly, dangerous assumptions which are current amongst most members of the
so-called fourth estate. The principle of objectivity has become axiomatic, the
standard by which all journalists are supposed to gage their work. There must
be an “even-handed” analysis of the event, “both sides” need to have their day
in the sun, and, whatever you do, do not alienate any of the readers. Seeing as
objectivity, that elusive, ethereal ideal, is a preoccupation of journalists,
it should not be surprising that Lowry raises it as his chief point of
contention with Zinn’s work. In the mouth of Lowry, the idea of objectivity
takes on the theological colors. When he says that Zinn “had no use for
objectivity,” it is like excommunicating him from the altar of intellectualism
– or uttering the vilest expletive.

Behind this air of professionalism,
however, is a great deal of nonsense. The fact of the matter is that the facade
of objectivity indulged by journalists is just that – a substance-less spectacle.
No human-being is a disinterested automaton; if they were, they would not be
human. Instead of hovering above the earth, freed from the limits of the mind
and external influence, all people live within a set of complex circumstances
that shape their interests, reveal their ignorance and limit their
understanding. For journalists to entertain the pretense that they are
“objective” is consequently an exercise in self-deception and thoroughly
misleading.

Just as wrong, though, is the related idea
that being objective requires giving equal coverage to “both sides of the
story.” Of course, knowing where all the players stand is important, but the
principle of “both sides” is more often than not used to hide a power imbalance
between the “sides” rather than acknowledge or rectify this disparity. It is
also inherently reductive, framing any scenario as that between two groups for
ease of comprehension, even though the issue may encompass more groups than two
and be considerably more complex than implied. It also has the effect of
protecting powerful interests by giving credence to their lies; the concept of
“both sides” and “balance” becomes the fiction that both sides can be true or
right. Most importantly, this notion of “balance” commonly obscures the reality
that there may be onetruth which is crystal clear and, moreover, that
this truth may have powerful moral implications. (That is not to say that
either “party” grasps this truth, but only to suggest that an absolute truth
does exist and often can be discerned by the journalist if they choose to see
it.)

The classic example of the bankruptcy
of “objectivity” is the media’s coverage of the Israel-Palestine conflict. The
two “sides” in this case are Israel and Palestine. Under the facile notion of
“two sides,” the idea of parity or equal power between the two groups is
suggested implicitly. Furthermore, the demands of each “side” are seen as
equally legitimate. There is no victim and no victimizer, no weak and no
strong, only “sides.” Yet this cookie-cutter narrative utterly fails to evoke
the actual nature of the conflict. For in actuality, the conflict is between
wealthy Israeli colonizers who are violently constructing colonies on
Palestinian land, and Palestinians who are being ethnically cleansed from their
homes – a criminal process which has been going on over the course of the past
century.

This is not an objective assessment of
the conflict per se because the viewer – me – is embedded in society, and thus,
like all humans, views the conflict from a certain reference point within the
world. But this assessment is based on facts and, more importantly, it is the
truth. The “birth” of Israel was made possible by the violent displacement of
around 750,000 Palestinians, a number accepted by the international community,
serious scholars and many Israelis themselves. Today the construction of
illegal “settlements,” i.e. colonies, continues to displace 1,000s from their
homes. In fact, U.N. Resolution 194 explicitly recognizes that Palestinians are
being ethnically cleansed from their homes, as it guarantees their right of
return. And the right of return, now enshrined in the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights, was specifically created with the Palestinians in mind, as their removal
from the land occurred while the document – now the cornerstone of
international law – was being drafted.

In short the truth, contrary to the
suggestion of Lowry, is never reached objectively and the cookie-cutter
application of the “sides” criteria can actually wreak havoc on reality. What
is probably more radical to some ears, though, is the fact that the truth is often imbued with moral implications
and pathos. When Palestinian children are being attacked with (illegal) Israeli
phosphorous and cluster bombs, as happened during Operation Cast Lead of 2008, the
truth is not “even-handed,” “impartial,” or “balanced.” The truth, rather, is
that Israel is in the wrong and the deaths of Palestinian human-beings – not
“casualties,” “collateral damage,” or “numbers” – should make any human-being
angry. To sanitize the hellish torment experienced by the victims under the
shibboleth of objectivity, with its “sides” and “even-handedness,” is not being
objective: it is aiding the victimizer by distorting the facts.

The ideal of objectivity suggests that
the journalist exists above and outside the world, recording pure, distilled
truth as it hovers out in the ether. We have already examined why this is not
the case for the journalist; now it is time to explain why this understanding
of truth is problematic. For truth, like the journalist, exists in the world,
not outside of it. It then follows that truth is not a stoic, emotionless ideal
but a tangible, even emotional, reality. It is not pedantic, dry or lifeless –
a floating abstraction – but can be exuberant, heartrending, calm or powerful.
Truth reflects the complexity, chaos and wonder of existence. The Bible, for
example, says that the truth will set you free; these are, indeed, bold words. What
does all this mean though? To begin, the truth can and, in many cases, should
elicit an emotional response from the hearer. Some truths require a response,
that is to say, action. When someone learns about the truth of Palestinian
suffering, for instance, they should use the opportunities within their reach
to help the victims. At the very least, they should not perform any act which
aids the crimes of the oppressors. Simply put, truth can have real moral
implications and should compel real action.

________

For Lowry to rail against Zinn because
of his lack of objectivity consequently reveals more about the columnist’s
(erroneous) assumptions than anything intrinsically wrong with Zinn’s work. The
question still remains, though, as to why journalists are so enamored by the
idea of objectivity. Firstly, entertaining pretensions to objectivity
implicitly accords the journalist a position of superiority and power: the
power to know over the known. This power is obviously a very seductive idea. On
the assumption of objectivity, they can claim oracular abilities, to see the
world without the pesky obstacles of bias and ignorance – obstacles which, if
we are honest, are faced by all humanity. Secondly – and as previously noted –
the notion of objectivity lends itself to convenient, cookie cutter clichés
which make writing easier. The format of “two sides,” “equal coverage,” and
“balance” literally provides a ready-made blueprint for any issue, even those
which do not fit the mold in real life. For journalists who are under the
pressure of a deadline, these formulaic models can become very attractive.

Thirdly,
many journalists and news organs are funded by special interests which have a stake
in seeing that their side is given favorable coverage. There are few lobbying
interests in the U.S. for the Palestinians while there are legions of groups
which propound Israel’s policies: the ADL, AIPAC and WINEP, to name a few. If
any newspaper suggests that the Israeli government is doing anything illegal in
Palestine, these groups are sure to pounce – as they have before in the past. It
also does not help that the decidedly non-objective political culture in the
U.S. is bitterly hostile of the Palestinian “side.” The U.S. government gives
more military and foreign aid to Israel than to any other country in the world,
despite Israel’s being a member of the First World; the last U.S. “arbiters”
between the “two sides” were former members of the Israeli lobby (Dennis Ross of
AIPAC extraction and now Martin Indyk, former ambassador to Israel); and the
U.S. is the only country that vetoes
U.N. Security Council resolutions that criticize Israel’s violations of human
rights.

And lastly, the notion of objectivity
is, in practice, highly profitable. Newspapers are, in the end, businesses. To
buy a newspaper is to buy not only news but advertisements, which, you may
notice, generally account for one-half of each page. By depicting stories in an
“objective” fashion, it is less likely that a reader’s ideological inclinations
will be alienated, prompting them to stop subscribing to the newspaper. If
“both sides” are depicted, then, the explanation of the issue may be synthetic
and the truth may be muddied, but it is less likely that the reader’s feathers
will be ruffled and stop paying the subscription fee. After all, their “side”
will have been covered. What’s more, the above-noted formula that “objective”
reports follow dogmatically is easier for the reader to digest. Complex issues
are broken down into binaries, e.g. “both sides,” creating a narrative that,
while superficial, has instinctive appeal. The reader may not understand what
is going on in the Syrian War, for instance, but they will be assured that
there are “two sides,” and their government supports the “good” one. All
issues, no matter how complex or grave, can be grasped instinctually by the reader
through use of this cookie-cutter formula.

What then can we conclude from Lowry’s
objectivity fetishism? The much vaunted ideal of objectivity, in practice,
assumes that the truth itself is neutral, though this merits a bit more
explanation. You will often hear journalists say that they strive to be
“neutral,” this phrase in fact being interchangeable with “objective.” While it
is important for a journalist to scrutinize the facts and weigh them honestly,
this is different from being neutral or objective. For when striving to be
neutral or objective – two criteria with no semblance to reality – most
journalists end up projecting these criteria on the truth; the criteria used to
gain truth come to restrain, order and, all too often, distort the truth itself.
In seeking to gain truth neutrally or objectively, the truth itself is seen as
existing in a neutral or objective state. This is, in part, why “both sides”
may be given an air of validity, even if one may consist of unimpeachable facts
and the other complete fabrication. But the truth is seldom neutral, as
explained in the case of Israel and Palestine. Rather, the truth may very well
serve to vindicate some while assigning guilt to others. It can be
revolutionary, electrifying and demand a response; it is far from the vapid,
bipolar and negotiable abstraction assumed by the fourth estate.

But the assumption of truth’s
neutrality does serve a distinct political purpose. If truth is neutral than
both sides can be right, even the victimizers; the moral demands intrinsic to
some truths are emasculated from the truth itself, meaning that the viewer is
encouraged towards apathy; and, out of a sense of “proportion,” the great power
differential that lies between the haves and have-nots, the common and the
elite, the victims and the victimizers is glossed over. The weakness of one
group is hidden, allowing for their continued victimization. So this week the
press can talk about “peace talks” between both the Israeli and Palestinian
“sides,” obscuring the fact that the “peace talks” amount to the powerful
dictating the terms to the weak; that is, the U.S.-Israeli alliance – which is
a legal, diplomatic and historical reality – against the Palestinians. Yet, we
are assured, this is simply done out of a sense of “neutrality,” “proportion”
and “balance.” This engenders contradictions to no end. The U.S. is supposed to
be a “neutral” party to the dispute, despite the fact that it arms Israel with
the latest weaponry; has waged war on the Palestinians, as in Lebanon during
the 1980s; and, even while it negotiates with Palestine, refuses to recognize
the existence of a Palestinian state – in other words, that a Palestinian
“side” actually exists. So “objectivity” and “neutrality” do serve a particular
“side;” that people actually believe in objectivity – especially journalists – is
one of the greatest propaganda coups of the twentieth century.

________

Now having addressed Lowry’s maladroit
handling of the objectivity card on journalism’s terms, it is time to examine
why objectivity is problematic when used as a criterion for historical
research. After all, Lowry’s article, at its core, raises questions of historical
methodology. All history is selected and manmade by necessity. Since it is
impossible to internalize all of history in its entirety, a historian must choose what they study based on a specific
question or problem that they seek to address from the reference point of the
present. Thus there is no such thing as an objective history because all
history is relative – that is, it is created in relation to a certain question,
problem or curious individual which exists in the present. Behind every
historical problem is a question and behind every question is a human-being.

As the philosopher Hannah Arendt wrote,
the “questions of science will always remain replies to questions asked by men;
the confusion in the issue of ‘objectivity’ was to assume that there could be
answers without questions and results independent of a question-asking being” (Arendt,
Between Past and Future, p. 49). In
regard to history, “every selection of material in a sense interferes with
history; and all criteria for selection put the historical course of events
under certain man-made conditions, which are quite similar to the conditions
the natural scientist prescribes to natural processes in the experiment” (p. 50).
So for Lowry to demand objectivity from Zinn is to literally assume the
possibility of human omniscience, trans-historical prescience and the existence
of neutral, platonic truth. It is, in short, to assume the fictive and expect
the impossible.

The real questions, then, are as
follows: were the questions raised by Zinn worth pursuing, was his methodology
honest and for what purpose did he write A
People’s History of the United States? Zinn, a civil rights scholar and
activist, was throughout his life deeply concerned with how history is
presented to the public. During the time in which he wrote A People’s History, few textbooks spoke about the struggles of
working-class people, the government’s genocidal campaign against Native Americans
or the struggles of non-white people in America. Instead, history – as in many
classrooms today – concentrated on the deeds of great white men (seldom women)
and generally viewed the nation’s past with rose-tinted glasses. Memorable
anecdotes were substituted for historical context, musty dates for relevance
and patriotic lessons in place of a real understanding of the U.S.’s less than
exemplary conduct in the world. Writing scholarly works during the Civil Rights
Movement and Vietnam War, Zinn was acutely aware of how history could – and was
– used to serve powerful interests. His magnum opus, A People’s History, was thus a response to a generally parochial
and hagiographic curriculum, the terrible effects of which he had seen in the brutal
ignorance of white supremacists in the American south and overseas in Vietnam.

So when Lowry writes that “If it is a
revelation to you that we treated Native Americans poorly, and if you believe
the Founding Fathers were a bunch of phonies, Zinn’s volume will strike you
with the power of a thunderclap,” he is literally taking Zinn’s work out of its
historical context. The sad fact of the matter is that many Americans at the
time of the book’s publication did not realize that the U.S. had “treated
Native Americans poorly” or that the “Founding Fathers” were humans in the
flesh who made serious transgressions. Many still don’t. If more people today –
such as Lowry, apparently – know these facts, it is in no small part due to
enterprising historians like Zinn who have seismically altered the way history
is taught during the last half century. For Lowry to be unaware of this fact
betrays astounding lack of historical foresight. After all, these social and
educational problems are precisely why Zinn’s book was written in the first
place.

Every historian pursues their studies
with a specific set of motives in mind. Zinn’s was to add a counter-narrative
to top-down histories, those that concentrate on the lives of an elite few, by
writing about the struggles that the majority of people faced in the U.S.
Unless you are someone with a vested interest in seeing that the history of the
U.S. working-class is hushed-up – a history often marred by elite violence,
greed and misanthropy – then it is hard to see why this would be viewed as a
controversial undertaking. Like most historical writing, it recognizes a problem
in existing scholarship and addresses this problem through the use of facts and
strenuous research.

In contrast, Lowry’s column would not
pass the same test of scholarly rigor. When he professes to be in complete
accord with the President Daniels of Purdue – “The sin of Mitch Daniels, it
turns out, is to take history more seriously than they do” – he commits himself
to several insoluble contradictions.The
President of Purdue’s claim that Zinn’s book “misstates American history on
every page,” for instance, falls apart on its own terms. Zinn’s book is several
hundred pages long. If Zinn really was a fraud, it is hard to believe that he
would have been skilled enough to lie on every page of his voluminous tome while
maintaining an air of credibility for the overall narrative. Most
interestingly, though, is the fact that many of the pages include extended
excerpts from primary source documents, i.e., historical evidence. Is Daniels’
saying that the historical evidence itself is lying? That is to say, is Daniels
denying reality?

It is also worth noting that while
Lowry uses the article as forum for hacking out gutsy and self-satisfying
flourishes – such as when he suggests that most historians view Zinn’s work as
“crap” – he fails to note a single instance in which the book actually falsifies
history. If the book is really wrong on “every page,” as Daniels and Lowry
suggest, then this task should not be too difficult. The absence of a single
concrete example of Zinn’s alleged sins is telling. The only sentence which
even takes on the semblance of a concrete example is when Lowry writes that
Zinn “joined his propagandistic purpose to a moral obtuseness that refused to
distinguish between the United States and its enemies, including Nazi Germany.”
This charge is not only false but shameful. During WWII, Zinn was a member of
the U.S. military who fought fascism overseas. Thus the claim that Zinn “refused
to distinguish” between the U.S. and Nazi Germany – and, by implication, that
he lacks moral scruples – is utterly ridiculous, not to mention, a gross distortion
of the facts. Zinn went on to oppose war as a matter of principle, largely out
of his own first-hand experience with war, both as a soldier and later as an
observer of the war in Vietnam. For someone like Lowry, who has never risked
anything, to level these absurd charges is disgusting.

________

The fact of the matter, however, is
that there are vested interests at work which would be all too happy to see a
work like Zinn’s banned. After WWII, for instance, few Americans believed that
laisser-faire capitalism worked. For people who had lived through the poverty
of the 1920s and subsequent Great Depression of the 1930s, the idea of
“percolation” – or, in our day, “trickle down” economics – appeared ridiculous.
It had been wholly disproven by the Depression, a catastrophe of epic
proportions which wealthy interests wished people would soon forget. It was only
government wartime spending that had extricated the country from the morass of the
Depression and the rise of labor unionism in the 1930s that safeguarded
post-war prosperity. Yet this shift towards the left and Keynesian economics
chagrined big business to no end, even as it reaped in cost-plus contracts and
massive subsidies from the government. Eventually influential businessmen like
Joseph Pew created pro-business organizations for disseminating corporate
propaganda amongst church organizations and dictating the curriculum in
schools. Their concerted efforts were very successful. Whereas most people in
the mid-1940s believed that some government intervention in the economy was
necessary, such support for government intervention fell precipitously in
subsequent decades.

These same interests were dead set
against students learning of big business’s soiled past. General Motor’s’
strategy of introducing prostitutes and liquor into their factories in order to
discredit sit-down strikers was forgotten. The Rockefeller mining interests’
massacre of striking women and children at Ludlow was forgotten. The free
dispensation of land-holdings the size of France by the government to the “free
market” railroad interests was forgotten. Henry Ford’s illegal attack on
unionization efforts through his clandestine “Service Department” was forgotten.
The fact that the nation had only decades earlier gone through a depression, the Depression, was forgotten. In short,
there was a lot that big business did not want people to remember. A People’s History helped resurrect
these memories; it was a shot of sanity into a historical discourse that had
long drifted away from the facts and this for political reasons.

So when Lowry writes that Zinn
believed that history is “politically useful,” he is merely stating the
obvious. Yes, Zinn believed that history is “politically useful,” but that is
because it is. Without history it is impossible to engage the political process
in an educated and informed manner. To deny this fact, as Lowry does, is to be
either naïve or mislead others purposefully. The “facts” had already been
marshaled by certain groups for their own interests – most notably the business
interests of the country – and Zinn’s work intelligently assailed to these
fixed ideas by showing that they simply do not conform to the historical
record.

There is a compelling reason, though,
as to why Lowry would want Zinn’s book to be banned. As a conservative
columnist and disciple of Charles Krauthammer, he has dedicated the majority of
his intellectual life propounding the thesis of American exceptionalism and
chronicling the vicissitudes of the Republican Party. Zinn’s book brilliantly
demolishes the thesis of American exceptionalism, or that the U.S. is a
uniquely beneficent power, and shows how both major political parties are out
of touch with the average American. Zinn does this through the use of two
things which are conspicuously absent from Lowry’s column: historical facts and
a deeper analysis of how present developments are linked to the past – you know,
history. And this is what makes Zinn’s tome powerful. Instead of divorcing the
past from the present, as many history teachers are in the habit of doing, he
had a knack for contextualizing present issues against the past in a way that
made both the past and present understandable. In other words, he was both the
consummate history teacher and a savvy political commentator. It is, then, not
surprising that Lowry should ridicule Zinn. Zinn had already proven that
Lowry’s work is factually wrong or, at best, socially irrelevant.

That the columnist chose to attack him after
his death is also telling; if he had written the same fact-less article during
the historian’s life, Zinn would have demolished it with a characteristically
brilliant critique. It is a sad but common tendency of intellectuals to attack
their peers only after they have gone to the grave. It is much easier to win
arguments when you are only arguing with yourself.

________

What
is most stunning about the work of public intellectuals like Lowry, however, is
the fact that, unlike Zinn, they do not invest anything in their writing. Zinn’s
views were informed by a life of activism and undergirded by a deep respect for
the intelligence of all human-beings. He had the humility and moral audacity to
protest war as a matter of principal, even though this meant discrediting his
own stint in the military and his previous worldview. To him, the potential
lives lost in war were more important than his own reputation.

In contrast, Lowry supported the
illegal invasion of Iraq instead of “objectively” noting that the reasons
spouted off by the Bush administration in favor of the war were all factually
incorrect; that is to say, they were 100% phony. After the initial invasion he
even went on to suggest that the U.S. should attack Syria, a country which had
assisted the U.S. in the 2003 invasion. The reason for this verdict: the U.S.
was in a “strong position to demand that they [Syria] end their relationship
with terrorist groups.” Lowry also was not enthusiastic about Baathist party of
Syria which he suggested was connected to the Baathists of Iraq.

What Lowry neglects to mention – and seems
blissfully unaware of – is the fact that the only “terrorist groups” which
Syria was allied with were American. After all, if America’s illegal invasion
of a sovereign country and the deaths of over one million Iraqis is not an act of "terrorism"
then I don’t know what is. And the suggestion that the Baathists of Syria are
connected to the Baathists of Iraq is laughable. If Lowry knew anything about
Middle-Eastern history, he would know that the Iraqi and Syrian branches of the
Baathist party split off from each other about a half century ago; they had
been irreconcilable enemies ever since. Lowry’s tendency to advocate and cover up
war crimes even went so far as supporting waterboarding and other policies which
are illegal under international law.

But what, you may ask, does this have
to do with the state of intelligent opinion today?

Intellectuals like Lowry can,
and regularly do, indulge in advocating policies which are questionable,
sometimes even criminal. When they are proven wrong, as in their support of the
Iraq War, they come out of it unscathed, their professional reputations intact.
One million Iraqis may have died, but you can bet that people will be reading –
and taking seriously – the columns of people like Lowry for years to come.
Nothing is at stake. And when they advocate sensational policies like
waterboarding, something inherently cruel and immoral, they may even expand
their reputation. He’s gutsy, people think; at least the column for makes an
interesting read. But that is the problem: what is written is interesting, yet most
of it is nonsense and some of it is dangerous. Despite their recklessness, irresponsibility
and whitewashing of reality, their work will still be read and applauded.
Advocates of the Iraq War like David Brooks, Michael Gerson and Rich Lowry will
continue to be read by “serious” audiences (probably not by Iraqis) and will
continue to haul in awards for their “serious” ideas.

Is this why so many intellectuals hate
Zinn? Confronted by a man who used facts, acted upon his convictions and
admitted when he was wrong, they are suddenly confronted by what they themselves
have failed to do. Suddenly the contradictions of their work come into the
light, only to blister and crack under their own weight.

And if, as Sartre said, the job of the intellectual
is to expose society’s contradictions, then Zinn's work fulfilled its task. Indeed, some people are still trying to come to grips with it.